Canadian Rockies or Glacier National Park?

Neither place is for a beach trip, and both offer much the same thing: glacier-fed lakes that are beautiful but painfully cold. Glacier has a slight edge, because Lake McDonald's coloured pebbles at Apgar make a lovely shore for a paddle, and Whitefish Lake and Flathead Lake, which warms to around 20°C, are a short drive away.

In the Rockies, the turquoise lakes at Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are for looking at, not swimming. Real swimming means the sandy shallows of Lake Annette and Lake Edith near Jasper, Johnson Lake near Banff, or Lake Windermere further south.

Neither is a food destination, and both serve mountain fare. The Rockies lean on Alberta beef, elk and lake trout in Banff steakhouses and grand hotel dining rooms, with Canmore's bakeries and small breweries the more relaxed choice. Glacier's signature is huckleberry in everything from pie to cocktails. Inside the park, meals are serviceable lodge food, so the better eating is down in Whitefish, with its farmers' market, or at the Flathead Lake cherry stands.

Both tell much the same story, of railways that brought the first tourists to the mountains, and neither has much indoors. The Rockies have a little more to see: Cave and Basin, where Canada's park system began, the Whyte Museum's mountain art, and the castle-like Banff Springs.

Glacier answers with the engineering of the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the log-lobby lodges of the Great Northern Railway. On its east side, the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning holds the deeper First Nations collection of the two.

The Rockies have the only real going out of the two. In Banff, ski-hill and hotel workers fill the pubs, sports bars and small dance clubs on Banff Avenue late into the night, especially in winter. It soon gets repetitive, but it exists.

Around Glacier, evenings mostly end with a drink in a lodge lounge at sunset. Whitefish's few saloons and taprooms are the only lively spot, and there are no clubs at all.

This is the reason to visit either place, and both are among the finest mountain landscapes in North America. The Rockies offer more of it, over more seasons. Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay national parks lie side by side, and the Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper runs past the Columbia Icefield. Winter adds ski hills, frozen canyon walks and Jasper's dark skies.

Glacier is more compact and feels wilder. It has the Highline Trail along the Garden Wall and the trails from Many Glacier to Grinnell Glacier and Iceberg Lake, with cedar rainforest on its west side and prairie on its east. Its high country, though, is open only from July to September.

In both places most days are spent out in the landscape rather than visiting other towns. The Rockies have the advantage of a real city within reach: Calgary, with its museums and the July Stampede, is about an hour and a half from Banff, and Field, Golden and the Columbia Valley hot-spring towns fill shorter outings. Glacier's best outing crosses the border to Waterton and its old railway hotel. On the other side of the park, Bigfork and the Flathead Lake orchards make a gentler drive.

The Rockies are the easier choice with children. Gondolas up Sulphur Mountain and at Lake Louise, canoeing on calm lakes, hot-spring pools and the catwalks of Johnston Canyon give variety. Safe, compact Banff and Canmore are simple places to stay, and Calgary's zoo and science centre cover a rainy day.

Glacier rewards school-age children with the Trail of the Cedars, the historic boat tours and the Junior Ranger programme. Beyond that it offers little else for them, along with long narrow roads and basic rooms, which makes it harder going with toddlers.

You will want a car in both places, but the Rockies are kinder to drivers and to those without a car. The Trans-Canada Highway and the Icefields Parkway are wide, scenic roads. Local buses link Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise and Lake Minnewanka, and shuttles serve the busiest lakes.

Glacier depends on the slow, cliff-edge Going-to-the-Sun Road, open only in summer, and its east-side valleys are reached by long detours outside the park. In its favour, the airport near Kalispell is close, the cross-country train stops at both East and West Glacier, and a free summer shuttle runs along the Sun Road.

Neither place is worth a shopping trip. Banff Avenue has more choice, with outdoor gear, landscape galleries and some Indigenous art. Glacier offers lodge gift shops and Whitefish's Western-wear stores, though Blackfeet beadwork from around Browning makes the most meaningful souvenir of either trip.

Both are expensive in summer, but Glacier is the easier of the two to do for less. Its campgrounds and the plain motels of Kalispell and Columbia Falls cut costs well, as long as you are happy to drive in each day.

In the Rockies, rooms in Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper are scarce and priced to match, and park passes come on top of the car hire. Canmore, Golden and the campgrounds are the ways to save money there.

The Rockies have one serious venue, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity on Tunnel Mountain. It offers summer concerts, opera and dance, plus the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in autumn, and Calgary is close enough for theatre. Around Glacier, the summer musicals at the Bigfork playhouse and a regional symphony are the extent of it. Inside the park itself, the entertainment is ranger talks and Blackfeet speakers around the campfire.

The Rockies have something Glacier lacks entirely: natural hot water to sit in when the day is done. An hour in an open-air pool on Sulphur Mountain or down in the Radium canyon, with steam rising around you and stiff legs easing after a long climb or a day on the skis, makes a real evening out. It works in January as well as July. The pools are sociable rather than hushed, so anyone after silence and treatments will do better in a railway hotel spa or at the Kananaskis spa.

Glacier offers a different kind of rest. With no springs and little pampering nearby, relaxing there means an empty evening by a lake after a dawn start, with nothing to do but watch the light leave the peaks. That suits walkers who want to unplug completely. Anyone who counts a soak or a massage as part of the vacation should head north.